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MONTREAL -- The holiday celebrates no less than freedom from religious persecution. But most people associate Hanukkah with potato latkes.

At Hanukkah, which this year begins at nightfall on Dec. 20, crispy fried foods, both savoury and sweet, are served. Of these, potato latkes – pancakes of grated potato, and usually some onion, fried until crisp and then slathered with sour cream or applesauce – have achieved iconic status, certainly among Ashkenazi Jews. They’re eaten year-round, not just at Hanukkah – and not just by Jews.

But what not everyone realizes is that it’s the fact that latkes are fried in oil, not that they contain potato, that links them symbolically to Hanukkah, an eight-day holiday that falls during some of the season’s darkest days and celebrates deliverance from the darkness of religious persecution, as Jayne Cohen put it in Jewish Holiday Cooking (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

The Syrian-Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, wishing to impose Hellenistic culture on the ethnic minorities in his empire, outlawed all other religions.

A small band of Jews, the Maccabees, revolted and were victorious. They returned to Jerusalem to find their temple desecrated; legend has it that when they prepared to re-dedicate the temple they had recovered, they found enough sanctified oil to burn for a single day – but it burned for eight, until more oil could be prepared, in what has come to be known as the miracle of Hanukkah.

Eight lights are kindled successively during Hanukkah on a special candelabrum, one for each night of the holiday, to symbolize the miracle. And the custom is to eat foods fried in oil. For many families, Hanukkah wouldn’t be Hanukkah without potato latkes, and in their households, the spud rules. But the potato latke is actually a relatively recent innovation, as Gil Marks observes in his Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), and the original latkes were probably made with cheese.

“The Maccabees never saw a potato, much less a potato pancake,” he writes in the book’s latke entry. “When the Spanish first brought the potato to Europe from its native South America, it was considered poisonous and many centuries passed before it gradually gained acceptance as food.”

The first Europeans to embrace the potato fully were the French, according to Marks – in the late 18th century, when they were desperate because of the famine brought about by the French Revolution. The Germans, too, began to eat potatoes, he writes, and German Jews began to make potato pancakes, although not specifically for Hanukkah.

It wasn’t until a series of crop failures in Eastern Europe during the mid-19th century that potatoes were planted for the first time in large numbers in that part of the world. Within a short period, potatoes, which grow quickly, even in poor soil, and can be stored through winter, became the staple of the eastern European Jewish diet – and potato latkes became the most common Hanukkah pancake, Marks writes. They came to North America with German immigrants in the 19th century.

Like many Ashkenazi foods, pancakes appeared first among Italian Jews, who fried them in olive oil, according to Marks. The idea travelled north, reaching the Jews of northern Europe in the 14th century. After the Jews were expelled from Sicily by the Spaniards in 1492, they migrated north and introduced their ricotta cheese pancakes to the Jews of northern Italy. These cheese pancakes, which combined the fried and dairy elements that had come to be considered traditional Hanukkah fare, became a Hanukkah dish, he writes.

But soft cheese and butter were considered luxury items during winters in northeastern Europe, and cheese latkes were replaced during the Middle Ages by those made with buckwheat flour as Jews moved eastward into Europe. Until the arrival of the potato, they also used turnips and other vegetables for their patties.

Still, eating cheese latkes and other dairy foods remains a custom, if a little-known one, at Hanukkah. It’s a nod to the story of Judith, heroine in the Apocryphal Book of Judith. According to legend, the pious and beautiful widow was determined to save her besieged city, Bethulia, from Assyrian invaders, commanded by a general named Holofernes. Judith served him salty cheese to make him thirsty and when he fell into a drunken stupor she beheaded him with a sword.

Although no one is sure how her story was linked to Hanukkah and she doesn’t get nearly the play the Maccabees do, rabbis refer to Judith as a heroine of Hanukkah. In commemoration, Ashkenazi Jews eat foods like cheese blintzes and cheesecake, Claudia Roden observed in The Book of Jewish Food (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), and Sephardic Jews eat cheese bumuelos.

RECIPES

Here are four takes on fritters fried in oil, in honour of Hanukkah – and perfectly good all year round, as hors d’oeuvres, side dishes and, in the case of Gil Marks’s cheese pancakes, even dessert. And nary a potato in sight.

Zucchini Fritters with Tahini Sauce

Makes 12 fritters of 2-inch (5-cm) diameter

Shawna Goodman-Sone prepared these flavourful and fabulous green fritters at a cooking class at Loblaws in November – and those in attendance devoured them in no time. She reproduced them for us in her own kitchen. They work as a side dish or as hors d’oeuvres. And zucchini is moist enough that the batter requires no eggs to bind it.

Whisk first five ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Grate zucchini using a box grater and squeeze the excess liquid out through a colander or, better yet, with your hands. Mix zucchini into batter, together with chives and parsley; if you prefer dill or cilantro, use either in place of the parsley. Let stand until batter becomes moist, about 15 minutes. With wet hands, shape by rounded tablespoonful into 12 2-inch (5-centimetre) diameter patties. Place on foil. Heat 2 tablespoons (30 mL) oil in heavy large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add about half the patties and sauté until cooked through, browned and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to paper towel-covered platter. Repeat with remaining patties, adding more oil if needed.

These can be prepared in advance and flash frozen. Lay them on a baking sheet and place in freezer. Once they’re frozen, place in a resealable bag. They won’t stick together. To reheat from room temperature, spread pancakes in a single layer on a baking sheet and warm at 350 degrees F (175C) for about 7 minutes, until crispy. To re-heat frozen latkes, allow more time.

Sauce

½ cup (125 mL) tahini, sesame seed paste

2 tablespoons (30 mL) freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon (5 mL) cumin

2 tablespoons (30 mL) chopped cilantro or flat-leaf parsley

½ teaspoon (2 mL) salt

Pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

¼ to ⅓ cup (50 to 75 mL) water

Place all ingredients except water in a blender and blend – or put them in a bowl and use a hand-held immersion blender to blend. Add water gradually to achieve desired thickness. Sauce should coat the back of a spoon.

Salmon Watercress Latkes with Yogourt-Garlic-Lemon Sauce

Holly Botner, who blogs at JitteryCook.com, has a wonderful sense of flavour – and humour. Her posts are entertaining and her recipes are never too complicated and always rewarding – like this one, which she prepared for us and then posted about.

Mix first seven ingredients together in a bowl and leave the mixture to sit for five minutes for the breadcrumbs to absorb moisture. Shape the mixture into patties of desired size, medium-sized to serve on a plate at the table or small to serve as hors d’oeuvres. Another option is to make small, bite-sized balls of approximately 1-inch (2.5 cm) diameter. Into a large, heavy large frying pan over medium-high heat, pour enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and heat until hot, but not smoking. Use sunflower, canola or grapeseed oil in place of peanut, if you like. Add patties (or balls) and turn heat down slightly as they begin to sizzle. Cook for a few minutes on each side, until browned and crispy and remove to paper towel-covered platter. Add oil as needed.

(After frying, the fish balls, which are thicker than the patties, should be baked on a pan in the oven at 325 degrees F (160 C) for about 10 minutes to make sure they’re cooked through.)

Serve the patties on a bed of watercress, or whatever greens you prefer, with the yogourt sauce (see recipe) drizzled over the latkes and the salad. The salmon-watercress balls can be served as hors d’oeuvres in ceramic Asian spoons with a drizzle of sauce and a watercress leaf as garnish.

Botner used half a hollowed-out green bell pepper as a vessel for the yogourt sauce.

Leftovers can be used in sandwiches, with the yogourt sauce or with horseradish, tomato and lettuce. They also freeze well.

Note: To make breadcrumbs, place sliced stale bread in a 250 degree F (120C) oven for 10 minutes, then turn off heat and leave bread in oven until it cools. Then place in food processor and use steel blade to process: less time for coarse crumbs and more for fine. Freeze for up to three months. Great way to use stale bread.

Yogourt sauce

1 garlic clove, minced very fine

1 green onion, minced very fine

2 teaspoons (10 mL) freshly squeezed lemon

2/3 cup (150 mL) plain yogourt

Sea salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Mince the garlic and green onion in a small food processor and add the remaining ingredients and pulse for about five seconds.

In a large bowl, beat together the cheese, eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla and salt until well combined.

In a large, heavy frying pan, heat a thin layer of oil over medium heat. In batches, drop the batter by heaping tablespoon and fry until the top is set and the bottom is lightly browned, about three minutes. Turn and fry until golden, about two minutes. Serve with sour cream, yogourt, maple syrup, jam, cinnamon-sugar or fresh fruit.

Mediterranean Chickpea Latkes

Yields 4 servings

This recipe, from Jewish Holiday Cooking (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), by Jayne Cohen, makes a savoury latke reminiscent of those fritters and crêpes in France and Italy made of chickpea flour. They make a good accompaniment to meat or poultry; they can be served as hors d’oeuvres with applesauce, with a few spoons of pomegranate molasses stirred into it.

In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, purée the chickpea, garlic and rosemary to a coarse paste. Add the extra-virgin oilive oil, eggs and 6 tablespoons (90 mL) water and blend until smooth. Add the cumin, salt to taste, pepper, flour and baking powder and pulse to blend well. Transfer the batter to a large bowl.

Heat 6 tablespoons (90 mL) oil in a 10- to 12-inch (25 to 30 cm) heavy frying pan, preferably cast-iron, over medium-high heat until hot, but not smoking. Working in batches, drop the batter by heaping tablespoons into the hot oil. Regulate heat carefully as latkes fry until golden on both side. To prevent the oil from splattering, use two spatulas or a spatula and a large spoon to turn the latkes, carefully. Do not turn them more than once; they will absorb too much oil. Before turning, lift the latkes slightly with the spatula to make sure the underside is crisp and brown. Drain on paper towels or untreated brown paper bags. If needed, add more oil to the pan, but allow the oil to get hot before frying a new batch. Serve right away.

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